The invention is an improvement on state-of-the-art current devices. The need for the invention is illustrated by a U.S. Federal Highway Administration financed study conducted by C.C. Technologies in 2002 study concluded that the total estimated direct cost of corrosion in the U.S. amounts to $276 billion per year or approximately 3.1% of the gross domestic product (GDP) of the U.S. Flemming, in a separate review, estimates MIC corrosion attributed 20% of overall corrosion cost. This data is quoted from the University of Ohio's Corrosion. Center at: http://www.corrosioncenter.ohiou.edu/nesic/papers/FullText/conference-83.pdf. To further the data collected, one can then extrapolate that MIC corrosion cost 55.2 billion U.S. dollars annually in the United States alone.
The need for the present invention is vividly demonstrated in the oil and gas industry. It has been reported by the SPE (Society of Petroleum Engineers) in paper number 120837-MS at the “SPE International Symposium on Oilfield Chemistry”, 20-22 Apr. 2009, The Woodlands, Tex., C. Smith, Lonza, Inc: “Corrosion related transmission pipeline cost estimates convey annual expenditures of $5.4 to $8.6 billion USD distributed among the cost of failures (10%), capital (38%), and operations and maintenance (52%)”. Also stated, “Better investigative techniques have recently shown a number of pipeline failures related to MIC and some recent estimates suggest MIC may contribute to as many as 20 to 30 percent of pipeline corrosion failures.” This puts the annual total costs for MIC bacterium corrosion in hydrocarbon pipelines in the range of 1.08 billion to 2.58 billion USD/year in the United States alone.
The need for the invention is illustrated by the rapid increase of MIC occurrence within pipelines, tanks and/or vessels in the United States and around the world.
The need for an in-situ sampling device for MIC bacterium is evident since MIC bacterial infection and corrosion is localized in nature and the biofilms, colony types and populations depend on the environmental factors of temperature, pressure, oxygen concentration and nutrient availability in different segments of the pipeline or vessel. Current diagnostic techniques are not designed to determine the existence of such micro, localized corrosion. Mitigation of MIC begins with determining the presence or lack of presence of MIC bacteria. The present invention addresses this need to know through representative sampling of the fluid contained within a pipe, pipeline, tank or vessel. It is a vehicle to deliver to the laboratory the sample to determine MIC bacteria presence in the fluid, gas and solids sampled.